No One I Know is Happy

 

I don't know if this is simply a part of the aging process, but the number of people I know who can legitimately say they're happy is smaller than those that say otherwise. The walls I've spent decades erecting in order to keep out the malaise have started to decay. Their cement is crumbling, failing, allowing eroded stone to become loose and dangerous at great heights. Holes have begun to form on either side of the wall, letting in whatever it is that sours me from the inside out. 

Personally, I am in my own worst timeline. My creative spark sputters on good days, but never fully lights. My nights are mostly sleepless, averaging around three hours of super lucid dreaming. When the nightmares come, they are vivid and they are tangible. I can taste their grime; I can feel the deep rumble of their insides; I awake and feel their sweat along my body. The landscape of my imagination is hot and hardscrabble, pockmarked with the animals that thrive in the absence of nourishment: insecurity, longing, weakening resolve. I keep remembering these nightmares. They stick with me for weeks, make a home out of my waking thoughts, burrow down into my headspace and appear inopportunely. The muse comes and goes, barely leaving her scent on the air before disappearing. She continues to elude me. 

I've been here before. It's a density no one should have to traverse, but too many often do. It is gray desert; it is all food made of ash and burn; it is disappointment and ruin upon every breath; it is the knowledge of every missed moment (and I have had so, so many of these). It's easy to put the reel of memory on the player and to let the aged images play through - all the what-ifs, the should'ves, the could'ves...the maybes. But that's the cannibalism of self-doubt, eating away at all the good inside you until it's had its fill. 

This will pass, but for now it simply is. 

The number of people I know in shitty situations they don't deserve...is legion. 

The number of people I currently know that deserve something better...is legion. 

The number of people I currently know who are trying to do more than just exist...is legion. 

Most days I feel like a torn sail, soaked and floating on the surface of a gray ocean, each wave working to keep me centered in the middle of nowhere. A 'starfish with its arms out in a daze staring at the stars through an ocean haze. Was I one you wished upon? Burned out like a light bulb when you turned me on.' 

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